Happy St Patrick’s Day!

Legend has him describing the trinity to his followers by referring to the clover or shamrock. This was a sacred plant to the Celts, honoring the triple Goddess, so using it as his analogy helped to create a bridge from the ancient to the new religion and contributed to his many “conversions.” This is the origin of the shamrock emblem we still associate with him. The leprechaun, also associated with St. Patrick’s Day, is an obvious reference to the elementals of Pagan Ireland.

Number of U.S. residents who claimed Irish ancestry in 2008. This number was more than eight times the population of Ireland itself (4.4 million). Irish was the nation’s second most frequently reported ancestry, trailing only German.

U.S. beef and cabbage production, respectively, in pounds, in 2006. Corned beef and cabbage is a traditional St. Patrick’s Day dish. The corned beef that celebrants dine on may very well have originated in Texas, which produced 6.8 billion pounds worth of beef, while the cabbage most likely came from California, which produced 607 million pounds worth, or New York (462 million pounds).

I bought my corned beef from B&E Meats this year. It comes with a recipe and instructions.